Darkness Before Dawn
by DarkElements10
Summary: The Wendigos were supposed to stay on the mountain. Blackwood Pines was never to be spoken of again. The survivors were supposed to move on. Supposed to.
1. Chapter 1

**Darkness Before Dawn**

**By: Riley**

**Full Summary** – The Wendigos were supposed to stay on the mountain. Blackwood Pines was never to be spoken of again. The survivors were supposed to move on. Supposed to. Two years after 'the prank', one year after their escape, the survivors were getting their lives back on track. But when disappearances and grisly discoveries are found in their hometown, they realize the Wendigos may have finally come off that mountain. And they're not going down without a fight. That doesn't mean it'll be easy. There was so much the survivors had seen on that mountain, so much they had lost, and it's time for them to take a stand.

* * *

**.:Chapter One:.**

* * *

"You don't want to go to Homecoming?"

"No."

"But you were a football player! Isn't that, like, the entire point? Where you go back and relive your glory days during the long weekend and talk to your old coach and teammates and act like life is never going to get much better than high school?"

Matty Taylor laughed to himself, his hands moving on auto-pilot, an almost direct contradiction to his words. _Going home_, the actual part of Homecoming was the part he was looking forward to. He wanted to go home, wanted to see his mom and dad, wanted to have some time away from college and the break neck speed of his classes and assignments. It was a bigger slap in the face for him, he moved onto campus, away from home—and the memories—as soon as he got the chance.

And it worked.

All until the dreaded long weekend came up. "Fall Break". Also known as homecoming for all college students to go back to their hometowns that they'd only just left to see what had changed and what had stayed the same. Matt knew the answer without having to go back, he'd changed. Everything changed after that night.

His mother had gently insisted he come back, that "you don't have to go to school. You don't have to see anyone else. You just have to see me." And Matt could practically see the smile she had on her face. His mother was always hard to say 'no' to. Almost as hard as his girlfriend, Cleo Reed, who lounged on his bed, chin in hands as she stretched out, gently kicking her feet back and forth, her heels striking her butt with each bob.

"Life got much better at high school," Matt said. He reached over and zipped his suitcase shut with a quick flick of his wrist. He heaved it to the floor then turned back to Cleo, folding his arms. "Trust me. Besides," he pointed a finger toward her, "Isn't it your school's homecoming, too?" Cleo nodded, her wavy hair bouncing gin her face. "So why aren't you going home?"

"Because I want to go with you." She blinked up at him, eyes as brown as her skin, but sparkled nicely. "You said you'd take me to meet your mom. And this is the best chance for it!" She shrugged her shoulders, picking at her nails. "I mean, unless you've got something to hide and that's why you're trying to talk me out of it." She climbed up to her knees, bouncing against the springs of his mattress holding an imaginary microphone out to him. "The people want to know, Matt, why don't you want to go to homecoming?"

Matt chuckled, shaking his head. He sighed quietly, trying to figure out what excuse he could come up with to explain. He turned his head, tugged at the earring in his left ear.

"Am I making you nervous?"

Cleo's innocent question immediately made Matt drop his hand from his ear. He hated how easily she could see through him. Or, rather, how easily he showed the tell-tale signs of his nerves, of his worries, of his anxiety as much as he tried to hide them. His mother always said he'd tug on his earlobe when he was anxious about something, thought that getting the piercing—as cool as it was—would stop him.

"Yes," he finally replied. "All these questions are making me nervous." He grinned at her. "I can't tell whether or not you're planning on teaming up with my parents to make fun of me all weekend." His smile faded a little. "You don't have to come."

"I want to." Cleo bounced off the bed and stood next to him, a healthy 5'7 to his 5'8.

A match made in heaven for someone who was looking for a boy who was at least the same height, if not taller than her, all through high school, as she admitted to him later. It was the biggest reason, she said later, that she'd asked him to join the Ballroom Program.

She'd been with the rest of the club, passing out flyers on campus and had noticed him and his distinct swagger as he crossed the quad. It wasn't a confident swagger that he may have once had–it was a controversial topic before the year started that he had numerous football opportunities at numerous colleges and universities and turned it down—but looked more like a limp had set in at some point. A limp that no amount of physical therapy would fix.

Then she noticed how tall he was, a height that no other guy she'd met so far had worked. Too many people that were too short or too tall, and, finally, she found someone who was the perfect height. Goldilocks she wasn't—her curls were a deep shade of chocolate brown—but she was going to make sure it worked. So, she thrust a flyer into his hands as he passed, making sure to give a bright smile and flutter her eyelashes a bit as she did so.

Of course, she was teased about it by her friends later, filling the dining hall with girlish shrieks of laughter. But it worked. She went to the next meeting of the club and found him cautiously looking around as he rubbed at his thigh, as if working to rub out an injury.

"I knew you'd come," she said, going over to him. Matt looked at her. "I mean, I wasn't _exactly _sure, but I thought you couldn't turn down a new challenge. You were a football player, right?"

"I was," Matt agreed. And he left it at that. Cleo's shoulders slumped a little. It wasn't like she expected to have a moment of clarity pass between them that would immediately make him see how he'd be a good partner for her, but she expected him to be a bit more of a big man on campus.

He'd just admitted he was a football player, didn't he?

Cleo twisted her mouth to the side, watching him continued to knead this thigh. "Old injury?" She asked.

Something flashed across Matt's face, a haunted look coming to his eyes. Then he stood straight and folded his arms, turning up the side of his mouth. "Something like that," he replied.

The instructor arrived, and Cleo moved aside, pulling her long hair into a ponytail. She listened as the instructor lead them through their stretches and explained how the club worked to the new students—how they practiced and competed, and while they competed, it was still important that they had fun with it.

Then they were instructed to start out with understanding of how framing their bodies worked. That was the part of the class that made people giggle and look around to see if the instructor was being serious. It was the part that Cleo had grown used to since she started ballroom dancing at five years old. She had to trust her partner as much as they trusted her—it was easier (and much less sexualized) when it was first introduced when they were kids.

Cleo had to tune out all the chuckling and sly glances around her from the pairings that still weren't used to being chest to chest with their partner. Matt slid right into it, doing everything he was told with precision and concentration, surprising Cleo that he picked up the moves so quickly.

They were able to, quickly, move from the beginning steps into the basic opening for the foxtrot. And moved on to the rest, getting through the dance at half speed by the time the club ended. Cleo knew then, from the tired smile on Matt's face, that he would come back.

It was the icing on the cake when, after months of being in the club he'd said, "You know, I like this," Matt commented. "Being so close to you."

Cleo grinned. "I thought you would."

It was almost as good as when she said, "You're the best thing that's happened to me."

Matt brought the rumpled, musty towel down from his face and looked to Cleo, who had saddled up to his side a few weeks after the club had started. A wry smile came to his lips. "Never thought I'd hear that in my life. Not until I was thirty at least."

Cleo rolled her eyes, shoving a handful of curls off her forehead. "Well…if you hadn't showed up today, I would've been stuck with Daniels." She tossed her head back to the other side of the room where the man furiously rubbed a towel between his palms as if working to light it on fire.

Matt chuckled, his eyes tracking Cleo's to the woman who stood next to him, rubbing her tailbone that had suddenly an unexpectedly had a date with the floor. "What would've killed you? The bad breath or the sweaty hands?"

"Both." Cleo's nose wrinkled. She turned back to Matt, placing her hands on her hips. A frown puckered her lips. "I don't know which one I could've withstood longer." She looked at Matt closely, her frown deepening with concern. "You haven't been around lately," She remarked. "Is everything okay?"

Matt quickly brushed off the concern. But since then, they were nearly inseparable. And, the only time he'd wanted to have her on her own was…well…he wouldn't have been too upset if she had decided to go to her own homecoming instead of insisting on his. If he didn't know any better, there was something she was trying to avoid seeing her home as well.

"It's a small town," She said, when they were getting to know each other. "You've seen them once, you've seen them all. What about you?"

Matt had abruptly changed the subject and she never brought it up again. Until she continued to wheedle at him about Homecoming. That was Cleo, never took 'no' for an answer and was the most passionate person he'd ever met. He almost couldn't say 'no' to her.

Almost.

But he found himself unable to do so when she grasped his hands in hers, lovingly rubbing her thumbs over the backs of his hands and said, smiling prettily at him, "I want to get to know your parents. And your friends. I want to get to know you better. I want to know what makes Matt Taylor, Matt Taylor. Who I love to spend so much time with." She thought for a second, scrunching up half her face. "Who I'm _not _so happy to spend six hours in a car with…"

Matt laughed as she trailed off and wrapped his arms around her waist. He pressed his forehead against Cleo's and closed his eyes. He took in a deep breath through his nose, letting it out through his mouth, smiling when Cleo shivered and giggled quietly with the warmth that spread over her face. He opened his eyes, his hazel ones so close to her browns that he could feel her eyelashes fluttering against his.

"I hope you don't make me listen to Justin Bieber the whole way there," he said finally, dropping his arms from her waist.

Cleo laughed and shoved him on the arm, picking up her purse from the floor to deposit on his bed before retrieving her shoes from the floor. She was so preoccupied with her last-minute gathering of items that he didn't notice the heavy sigh Matt released, pressing a hand to his stomach before lowering it to his thigh, where he pressed his fingers into the twinge of muscle just below his jeans.

A reminder that he could never full shake. He ignored it when Cleo grasped his hand and asked, "Ready?" as if nothing was amiss. For her, nothing was. For Matt, he wondered how long it would take for all of it to come out. Wondered how long his pretending that none of it existed would hold up.

The drive to his home started out well; they sang along to every song, doing intricate dance moves in their seats as they did so, even scream-singing to the ones they hated. They talked about everything; about their classes, their classmates, their upcoming ballroom competition, their hometowns, their families. His parents were excited to meet Cleo while Cleo's parents were equally excited to know things were becoming serious with them as well.

Matt was careful to avoid anything about 'the prank' and 'the incident'. As it was, he probably should've warned her he was a bit of a local celebrity, but she was the one who wanted to tag along on the trip. He hadn't invited her, honestly. But she'd insisted on coming, saying she could tell he wasn't excited about it and could probably use some company.

"Besides," she reminded him. "You're my partner, we're supposed to trust each other."

Matt smiled, almost bashfully. He lowered his chin, looking at her up through his eyelashes. "That's true," he agreed. It was what their instructor had drilled into their heads on the first meeting of the club; whomever their partner was they had to trust each other fully, not just due to the painful lifts and spins they'd put each other in, but to trust each other to have the audience feel the emotions they were putting into their dance. "And, if I can trust you after you gave me that concussion…" he sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth. "I guess I can trust you with anything."

Cleo then gave an indignant squeal and punched him on the arm while Matt laughed. "I _told _you I was going to try a high-kick. _You _were the one who put your head in the way."

"I was just distracted by you able to get your leg up that high," Matt defended himself. Then he shrugged and added, placing his hand on her knee, rubbing the exposed skin from her tiny shorts. "And you've got nice legs. I'm a lucky guy." Cleo shoved him hard on the chest, not enough to move him, but caused them to burst out into loud laughter again.

Matt hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

And as the closer he got to his hometown, the quieter he became. He wasn't sure if Cleo noticed, she just continued to talk and talk, jumping from one topic to the next, each sentence chasing each other as the seconds passed. Matt simply grasped the steering wheel harder and harder, wondering if it was too late to turn around.

The passing of the sign that announced their arrival into his hometown.

Matt let out an irritable sigh.

Cleo immediately cut off, silence stretching through the car. She brought up her finger and started to twist them in her curls, a move Matt easily recognized as her nervous habit. A move that also made her appear ditzier than she was. She parted her lips, paused, and finally asked, "Am I talking too much?"

_Yes. _But Matt couldn't say that. It wouldn't be him. He was too nice. Too sweet. He was the good guy; the people pleaser. The one who would let someone literally walk all over him so that everyone else would be happy. The one who could be a pushover.

_Were you a pushover when you left Emily dangling like that?_

The voice came to his head before he could stop it. Grimacing, Matt brought a hand up to his mouth, almost as if he were about to throw up. He really did want to. Any memory of the wendigoes managed to affect him more than he'd like to let on. And there he was, driving back into the devil's den because…

Because he'd avoided his home long enough.

Because he was tired of the way his parents looked at him.

Because he was tired of the concerned glances when they weren't acting like everything was okay.

Because he hated how they acted like nothing had happened and that he was still the same ol' Matt who was the 'football superstar'—despite him not getting that football scholarship.

'The incident' had ruined any chance of that happening. Too much time in the hospital, too much time in therapy, unable to leave the house until he finally learned to put that mask on.

"You hesitated," Cleo pointed out. Despite the tiny smile on her face, he knew she was worried over his rapid change in demeanor. He couldn't help it, the closer he got to home, the sourer his face got. "Is it my fault?"

"No," Matt replied, almost immediately. He couldn't allow her to blame herself for something when it was him that should be blamed. He was the 'good guy' who managed to become a 'bad boy' all because he got roped into a prank because he wanted to keep a good party going. And it resulted in so much death, so much bloodshed… "It's mine."

Matt sucked in a deep breath, wondering if she noticed the large bags under his eyes. What was he supposed to say?

That it was two years since 'the prank'? That it's been a year since he managed to come off Blackwood Mountain relatively unscathed. Matt's breath turned to a snort. Unscathed? Sure, if scars on his back, hands, and knees from escaping a falling fire tower and mines filled with horrific, monstrous creatures was unscathed. If having numerous nightmares for the first three months to the point that he refused to sleep was unscathed.

If going away to the furthest college you could get into on a sports scholarship and throw yourself into your work only for your body to betray you and start the nightmares again was unscathed, then yes, he was having a field day.

* * *

**A/N: **I've had this on my computer long enough, really wanted to get it up. Mostly because Man of Medan is coming out soon and the gameplay is similar, but because I've wanted to do this fic since I first watched gameplay of Until Dawn (and even more since I had bought and finished the game myself). I know the fandom's not very active anymore, but I hope you guys still enjoy the story.

**Cheers,**

**Riley**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

The face of the rock ledge dug into Sam Giddings, palms as she struggled to keep herself up. Her arms quaked, the tremor moving from her head to her feet. She sucked in a deep breath, steadying herself so that her quivering didn't tire her out too quickly. There were too many things that could go wrong if she allowed herself to tire out too quickly. Too many things she never wanted to think about.

The sun beat down, sweat dripping down her face and trailing around to her chin. They dripped off and ran down her neck, down the collar of her shirt, over her sticky body. But it was better, much better, than the frozen chunks of rock she'd had to desperately hold onto while trying to run from a nightmare. She could practically feel it then; the icy chunks of rock digging into her fingertips, pain shooting up her fingers as she struggled to hang on. The wintery chill making it harder for her to concentrate, limbs freezing up and simultaneously trembling as she shivered in the biting wind.

She could feel it all, all the while hanging from near death with only her fingertips under the blistering sun.

_No. _Sam shook her head. _Don't do that. Don't focus on the past. Focus on what you're doing, right now, or you're going to die. _She looked below her, where her feet swung freely above the mountainside below her. Her fingers instinctively curled over the rock even harder, the burning slab stinging her fingertips.

How much longer could she hold on? She was strong, but…even the strongest managed to fall at some point. She turned to the side, forming right angles with her arms and tried to swing her legs up, but found the tips of her toes just scraping the ledge she was trying to bring herself up to. She found herself dangling once more.

"Ugh, come on, Sam!" She muttered to herself.

"So!" Sam sighed and angled her head up to look at the voice above her. She couldn't stop her eyes from doing its revolution before it focused on Mike's face as it hovered above her. No, not hovered, but dangled. His large grin was close to her face as he stuck his head over the ledge to look at her. "Talk me through what happened here."

"Just help me up," Sam grumbled.

"Don't you want to try and figure it out yourself? Be that strong, independent woman we all know who are?"

"Michael Munroe, if you don't help me up, I'm going to take you down with me!"

Mike grinned, leaned back so that he could steady himself on the ledge, and leaned down to take Sam's hand. Sam reached up and firmly grasped it, letting out a sigh of relief when her feet reached solid ground. Once up, she turned and sat on the ledge, dangling her feet over it so that she could gaze around the view from the top of the mountain. A small smile came to her lips as the seconds passed and she basked in the breeze from up top.

How long had it been since she'd climbed any mountains? The interrogations form the police, the extended stays in the hospital, the time it took to heal, it all just took away from her time climbing rock and hiking. Or, if she were being more honest, she couldn't bring herself to go back. While something over the past few days, the past few weeks, had drawn her to jump out of her comfort zone and just try.

To see what would happen.

"Aren't you going to thank me?"

Sam looked over when she saw Mike as standing beside her, hands shoved into the pockets of his basketball shorts. He looked around the view with the cocky air only Mike could exude. Sam's eyes made another revolution. This time of fondness. "For what?" She teased. "For not having to hold your sweaty hands anymore?" She clasped her hands together and grinned. "Thank you, Mike, thank you so much."

"I meant, 'thank you' for saving your life." Mike sat next to her. He gave her a lopsided smile. "I could've let you fall to your death but, like a gentleman, I helped you up."

Sam chuckled, shaking her head. She studied Mike. Studied the way his nose was slightly crooked, the respite after having been hit in the face with such a strength that immediately blackened an eye and managed to knock some cartilage aside. Took in the noticeable scar by this mouth that turned a large, charming smile, into the lopsided one that didn't, at all, take away from his good look. Looked at the scars across his neck that resembled a claw raking along his skin. And, the most obvious, the two missing fingers on his left hand.

And, somehow, that hadn't managed to change Mike at all. He was still the cocky guy she'd known and grown to tolerate. _He'd moved on quicker than the rest of us have, _Sam thought, finally turning her gaze from him. She looked at the scars that lined her legs. _A lot quicker._

"Thanks, Mike," she finally said.

"You're welcome," he replied, tone shifting from joking to sincere. The flip of a dime. He'd been doing that a lot lately, she realized. Able to joke around one minute and suddenly fall into a moody silence that not even she could take. Almost as much as she'd woken up from faceless nightmares filled with screeching that would have her jerking away, ears ringing and wondering how close the screaming had been to her. "Nice view, huh?"

"Oh yeah," Sam agreed. She whipped up her water bottle and took in a long swig, making sure to tilt her head far enough to get the water but to not distract from the sprawling view in front of her. "It's gorgeous."

"Thanks!"

Sam snorted, knowing she walked herself into that one. Mike chuckled and patted himself on the shoulders. Once again, Sam noticed the missing fingers on his left hand. Mike followed her gaze, saw it, then lowered it to his side. His thumb, index, and middle fingers curled around the ledge. A strong grip, Sam noted, but maybe not as strong as it used to be.

"You know it's been about two years," Mike finally said, clearing his throat. Sam nodded. "Two years since it all started." He tilted his head back, chuckling under his breath. "Two years ago I said as my yearbook quote '"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.'"

Sam laughed. "What a bunch of crap."

"Yeah, I was full of shit." Mike's half-smile faded. He rubbed at his eyes, coughed. "I didn't think that quote would be…so ironic."

"You think yours was ironic?" Sam shook her head. "Mine was…" She squinted, trying to remember. Smiled when she did. "The opposite of anger is not calmness, it's empathy." She squinted an eye towards Mike. "Do you think Hannah was calm or empathetic when she went running off like that?"

"It doesn't matter," Mike said bluntly. His voice grew dark. Startled, Sam looked at him. "I fucked up. I fucked with her feelings. I didn't stop the prank. I didn't stop her from running out into the woods. I didn't think…" he sucked in a sharp breath, eyebrows coming together. "I didn't think she'd…" he trailed off.

Sam nodded. She reached out and laid her hand over Mike's, gently stroked the skin on the bank of his hand. Ran her fingertips over the nubs—what she lovingly called 'nubbins'—of his missing fingers. He brought his hand away, ran it through is hair.

"It's not your fault, Mike," Sam said gently. Mike shook his head. "The prank was your fault. Everything else that happened on that mountain, that wasn't your fault. None of us knew what was going to happen! None of us knew about the wendigos!"

Mike winced at the mention of the monsters that had caused them so much terror over the course of one night. At the same time, Sam fell silent. It was the first time, she realized, that she'd said it out loud. Talked about the wendigos. Even in therapy she had to pretend like they were simply nightmares that had come to life, some sort of boogeyman she couldn't put a name or face to. It was her way of coping, she thought defiantly.

She was fine.

She smiled through it all.

Said everything she was supposed to say that would make her therapist smile and nod and write good things down on their notepad and send Sam on her way with minimal worries for the next appointment. Or, as Mike called it, the Stepford Smile.

"The sort of smile you'd give your mother who thought you were still a virgin when you were, in fact, banging your boyfriend on the regular."

Sam wondered how often Mike had to use that line to describe the girls he'd gone out with. Stepford Smilers. No, it wouldn't have been given to any of them. Especially not Jessica Riley and Emily Davis. Ashamed, Sam lowered her eyes. Jessica Riley and Emily Davis. As if they hadn't all gone through something so harrowing together.

Soon she'd be calling Chris 'Christopher'.

You get terrorized by a native spirit once, you've been terrorized by them all.

"Anniversary's coming up," Sam remarked. She scratched the back of her head.

"It's not something to celebrate, Sam," Mike groused. He closed his eyes, tilting his head back. "Stop acting like everything's okay when it's not!" He opened his eyes and looked at her, eyes bouncing over the planes of her face. She could feel them burning a track into his skin. "How've you been sleeping?"

"Fine," she lied. With a smile. With _that _smile. The Stepford Smile. She didn't have to look at her reflection to know it was the smile she was giving. It was the default, as of late. Muscle memory of keeping herself form breaking down when under police interrogation.

"Sam…"

Sam made herself look him in the eye. He looked back at her, then his face softened. She could see it and knew she'd won. He wouldn't press her on it. Just as they didn't press each other if there was a tie, a stalemate in working to figure out who was to be the one to wallow in the memories for a few days.

Mike wiped his palms on the legs of his shorts and stood up. He held his hand out to her. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah."

Sam reached up and took his hand. When she was on her feet, she shoed him hard enough on the chest that made him take a step back, looking at her incredulously. Sam wagged a finger in his face, smiling a real smile. "That's for almost dropping me."

Mike smiled warmly. "I'd never drop you."

"You better not."

The two smiled before leaning in and sharing a sweet kiss. Finally, hand-in-hand, they hiked their way down the mountain.

_"You need to listen to me. I don't care if you believe me or not. Doesn't matter, because you will. You need to go down to the mines. I've seen what's down there…and I'd give anything to unsee it."_

How true that was.

* * *

**A/N: **And now you see Mike and Sam and how things are going with them. I hope to have the next chapter up soon. But let me tell you, it took me a bit to figure out what I wanted Mike's and Sam's relationship to be while plotting this story, and I do like them as a ship as much as I like Mike/Jessica and Sam/Josh. But I feel this makes more sense for what I have planned.

Let me know what you think!

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Matt looked over as Cleo exited the gas station, holding onto large bags. His eyebrows rose behind his sunglasses and he tilted his head, watching her come closer to the stopped car. The brightest of smiles on her face.

In contrast, Matt took in a deep breath, working hard to keep calm. It was dusk, the sunlight dispersing, the sun sinking lower and lower in the sky as the seconds passed. He hadn't expected to be there at dark, thought he would've been safely in the comfort of his home, not having to worry about anything, He looked around each time he heard a car coming, each time he heard something loud, each time he heard something _different. _Every time he looked and saw nothing, he would shake his head and quietly berate himself.

He was freaking out over nothing. Nothing had happened within the last year. He was in college, he healed, he had a girlfriend…that was it, really. Before meeting Cleo, Matt kept to himself as much as his possible. His professors like him, he went to almost every office hour that was offered to him. But everything was just…noise. Just there. Parties hadn't been his thing in a long time, and the few he'd gone to resulted in him standing aside and watching everything happen rather than participating.

He could hardly muster up a smile or a 'whoa' at the amazing feats of Beer Pong he'd seen. Those were all things he was excited for once graduating high school. And then…everything else happened and it was like his life stopped while everyone else's going.

A part of him died that day, and he was still mourning over himself.

"Don't you think you should take those off?" Cleo asked. She leaned on the trunk of the car next to him, nudging him with her shoulder. "I know you didn't plan much while we're here, but I don't think you planned on killing me." She laughed lightly then widened her eyes, placing her hand on his shoulder. "Right? Cause, if you were, I have to warn you that my dad taught me self-defense and I can take you down in a half nelson before you can blink."

Matt laughed and reached up, taking off his sunglasses. He hadn't really noticed he'd had them on. That's what he would tell her, anyway. There was a part of him that, subconsciously—Matt mentally shook his head. No, not subconsciously, _consciously_, there was a part of him that consciously knew if he were to spot a wendigo, or anything of the sort, their glassy eyes would've reflected against his sunglasses. Not that it would've made too much of a difference, the glassy, gleaming eyes would be the last thing anyone saw while the Wendigo ripped off their jaw or cleared their heads off their neck before they even knew what had happened.

"Tell my mom that," Matt joked instead. "Then she'll stop worrying about me so much."

"She's your mom, Matt, she's not going to stop worrying." Cleo reached up and grabbed his jaw. She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "And neither will I." Matt lifted an eyebrow, tucking his sunglasses into the collar of his shirt. "'I've been watching you all the way up here, Matt, something's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong." Matt reached up and rubbed at his eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted. It must've been the fear, it was getting to him more than he thought it would. "I'm just tired. It's a long drive." He looked pointedly at her. "Of which you didn't offer to drive."

"Hel_-lo_, I'm not in_sured_," Cleo sing-songed then giggled, laughing harder when Matt nudged her back, nearly knocking her off the trunk of the car. She pretended to flail, working hard to keep herself upright, and grabbed onto Matt's wrist in a vice-like grip.

All at once, Matt was brought back to the long night he tried his hardest not to think about. Where he was inching along through the mines with Jessica at his side, inching along while wood burst around his head, arms waving through.

_Matt cursed quietly as he dropped into the bottom shaft of the mines. He turned to the left, finding a table directly beside him holding a match and a lantern and quickly set it. Gasping for air, he brought up the lantern and shined it around, gasping when a shovel was suddenly swung toward his face._

_Instinctively, Matt jerked his head backwards, barely missing the end of the spade that 'whooshed' right by him. He raised the lantern, angling the arc of the light higher and gasped once more, not just seeing Jessica in front of him. But seeing how badly hurt she was._

_So much so that he couldn't help but ask, "Jess, is that you?" Tentatively. Jessica closed her eyes, fat tears rolling down her cheeks at the question. Whether it was from the pain or relief from seeing a friend, Matt wasn't sure. He licked his lips, gaping at the blackened bruises around her eye and nose, the split in her lip, and her stooped posture, arms lightly wrapped around her stomach. "Jesus, Jess what happened to you?" He wrapped his arms around her, carefully, gratefully that she attempted one back, holding tightly to the sleeves of his jacket. "How the fuck are you still alive?"_

_If Jessica weren't hurt, she would've glared at him, given him a solid punch on the arm. Given him some choice words that he wouldn't forget. But the Jessica in front of him, she could only shake her head, lower gaze and utter a quiet, "I, uh…"_

_"How did you end up down here?"_

_She shook her head once more. Took a deep breath, tried again. "Mike and I," she started. Her voice was croaking, but eventually, finally, looked him in the eye. Aa sudden strength coming from the mention of her boyfriend. Nevertheless, when she spoke, the strength didn't reach her voice. She, otherwise, appeared defeated. "We were messing around and…then it…it was…_

_It? Matt gently grasped her shoulder, studied her face. "What?" He pressed, chest heaving._

_She shook her head. "I don't know, I don't know…it was by the window and there was all this glass and it was in the snow and then it was moving so fast and then…fuck…I was down here." Her eyes roved around the mines, face crumpling as she quietly sobbed. "Oh, God."_

_"Can you move?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Okay." Matt put his arm around her shoulders, hugged her to his side. A move that would've been met with an awful, disgusting amount of reproach hours before. But Jessica gratefully leaned against his side, resting her head on his shoulder as they inched along through the narrow shafts of light beaming through the mines. "Come on, Jess."_

_He led them through the mines, both jumping when they heard a screeching from somewhere nearby,. Matt's heart fluttered in his chest, afraid, but not afraid enough to stop moving, to stop working towards safety. He only slowed, coming across what looked to be a crumpled elevator, shining his lantern over it. "Look at that, some sort of cave in through here."_

_"That was me," Jessica croaked._

_Matt wrenched his heard to look at her. She stared straight ahead, almost as if nothing made sense to her anymore. "What?" He looked at her, at the wreckage, then to her again. Her internal injuries…that made sense with the crash, her external…a simple crash in an elevator wouldn't make her look like she'd been beaten within an inch of her life._

_"I fell through that roof."_

_Matt shined the lantern above, grimacing when he saw what she was referring to. "You fell that far? Jesus, that makes two of us."_

_"What?" Jessica then looked at him, eyebrows coming together in concern. She examined him, looking for any of his injuries._

_"I fell off a goddamn fire tower down here," he replied. Made it seem like nothing. He had to strong for Jessica, couldn't let her known how afraid he was. How much he wanted to break down and cry. Wanted to be anywhere but there. Matt made sure he widened his gait just so, so that she didn't see his limping, from the injury in his leg. That fall had taken more out of him than he thought. _

_"You're kidding me."_

_Her response, as dull as it was, made him chuckle. They kept walking, working their way further thought the mines, until they heard a scream. Similar to the one before, but further away from them. Jessica leaned into Matt, grasping his jacket tighter, but kept going. All until they heard the screeching suddenly shift direction and come toward them, closer and closer as the seconds passed._

_Hearing a scuttling sound, Matt whirled around, taking Jessica with him, who whimpered in pain, raising his lantern. Something moved. He was sure of it. Something that darted just out of the light of the lantern, faster than he could blink. Shadows moved._

_"Fuck," he hissed and turned back around, dragging Jessica with him as he started to run. Moved as quickly as their combined injuries would let them to get away from the scuttling that moved quicker behind them, at the screech-scream that came louder and louder. He stopped, coming to a fork in the path. "Which way?" He hissed._

_Jessica grabbed his sleeve and ducked behind wooden slats that'd been placed over a hole in the rock wall. They ducked behind it, breathing heavily, waiting for…whatever it was to attack them. Matt sucked in a deep breath and held it. Maybe, maybe if they didn't move…whatever it was wouldn't see them. An elementary thought, but maybe…_

_Another scream._

_Jess whimpered and leaned forward._

_Matt grabbed her and pulled her back._

_Whatever was following them moved away. And yet Jessica continued to hold herself in Matt's arms, shaking. Matt wrapped his arms tightly around her, allowed her to rest her weight again him. "Jess, does this hurt?"_

_She nodded. "Oh God."_

_Matt waited for her to stop shaking before moving again. The screaming was gone, the scuttling was gone, they were safe for the moment. "Alright…alright, let's go. We gotta do this, get out of here. Come on. Come on. Jess, come on. Jess! Jess, come on."_

"Matt? Matt!"

Matt could hear Cleo trying to get his attention, but couldn't quite break himself out of the memory. Not until there was another quiet, incredulous, sort of excited sounding, "Matt?" that reached his ears. One that would only come from Sam Giddings, whom Matt found when he looked up.

She stood in front of him in climbing gear, a plastic bag of groceries from the gas station market dangling off her thumb. A small smile stuck to her face as Matt took her in, eyebrows rising. Sam…the last time he'd seen her…

Sam's smile widened and she turned to call over her shoulder, "Mike, look who's here."

And Matt looked up and saw Mike—_that _Mike—slowly sauntering up behind Sam, the same expression of…trepidation? Nerves? That Matt had on his face. Nevertheless, Sam stepped forward and opened her arms for a hug, which Matt quickly returned. He was a little surprised with how tightly she squeezed him, certainly not skimping on her rock climbing and workout routines.

_It doesn't look like she went through as much, _Matt thought. His eyes shifted towards Mike's left hand, seeing it was missing two fingers, then up to Mike's eyes, finding a sort of comfort in that Mike was able to give a half-smile in greeting.

"It's good to see you, Sam," Matt agreed. "You too, Mike," he added after a second.

"Yeah, what a reunion," Mike agreed. "We've got to, uh…" he looked around, as if finding his words for the air. "We've got to catch up over a drink sometime."

"Well, what are you doing here?" Sam asked. She kept that peculiar smile on her face, waiting for his response.

"Homecoming." Matt replied. "We came for Homecoming." Seeming to remember Cleo, he motioned toward her, a warm smile coming to his face as she smiled, as if on cue. The radiant, friendly smile she always wore that made him fall for her int eh first place. "This is my girlfriend, Cleo Reed, she wanted to come back with me so…here we are."

"Hi!" Cleo reached out and shook Sam's and Mike's hands with gusto. "Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you guys."

"That's great," Sam said. She matched Cleo's enthusiasm, still smiling. Matt watched her, eyes narrowing slightly. "I hope we can meet up again. Mike and I just stopped after a rock-climbing trip. Where, of course, he wasn't going to let me to the top first." She rolled her eyes while Mike's smile widened.

"Well, I couldn't let her have all the glory." Mike reached up his hand, about to place it on Sam's shoulder, then thought better of it, dropping it. "So, uh." He cleared his throat. "What have you been up to?"

Matt quickly rattled off his classes and the sorts of things he'd been leaning, but didn't put too much thought to it. As Matt, Sam, and Mike continued to talk—a polite conversation that didn't really go anywhere, Matt couldn't help but notice Cleo out of the corner of his eye. Not in the loving way that couples managed to do, where they seemed to always be aware of each other's presence, but with annoyance. She suddenly had her head buried in her phone, chewing her lower lip, bouncing her phone in her hand. She swayed back and forth, continuing to stare at the screen.

Every few seconds, she'd look up, brush her wavy hair from her face, then look at the three with a small smile, then turn back to her phone. Matt bid Mike and Sam goodbye, hollowly promising Mike he'd catch up with him over a drink, and the two got back in the car.

Cleo slumped in her seat, curling her body over her phone, turning away from Matt. Thumbs moving rapidly over the screen. He watched her for a moment then took a deep breath before saying, "So, what'd you think?"

"Of?"

She lifted her head and looked at him, brown eyes flat. Not as lively as it had been before. "Sam and Mike?"

"Oh." She nodded, smiled a little. "They seem like good people." And she put her phone in her lap, turned so that the back with her Pinkie Pie Pop Socket was facing him, and rested her hands in her lap. Matt was silent for a moment, nodded, and started the car, pulling away from the gas station and headed on the final stretch toward his house.

He had never thought Cleo would be cheating on him, but if there was a sign that she was keeping something from him as much as he was from her, that was it.

A big, glowing reflection of the phone screen she wouldn't let him see.

Across the street, Josh Washington adjusted the scarf around his neck, making sure it kept the deformed part of his face hidden.

* * *

**A/N:** I bet you didn't see that coming at the very end, did you? ;)

-**Riley**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

* * *

Detective Calhoun tipped his head back to down the rest of his coffee. His cold, bitter coffee that he'd held onto since arriving at work that morning. No, he thought seconds after his stomach protested, he couldn't quite remember when he had ordered his special blend. The hours passed by in a blur, a tired, hazy blur of long hours of work interceded by only a few hours of sleep.

And that car was more than uncomfortable. The seat hardly reclined as far back as it used to, the footwell was cramped, and he was certainly too tall to stretch out into the backseat to get in those precious few hours. If he could get a few of them in the office, then he'd be good to got to start up on…well…

To start up on the hardest case he'd ever had to revisit. It'd been a year, already, since having lost numerous of the officers that worked on the same case. The missing Washington Girls. The case that haunted all of Blackthorn Pines, the Washington family, and those that followed the story of the girls' initial disappearance. The case that captured the hearts of a community and the entirety of America and Canada.

American teenagers, young adults, had gone up for a long weekend after the end of the school year and two went missing. Then, a year later, the son went missing, and the rest of the survivors were picked up from a burning mansion with the most horrific injuries and wounds Detective Calhoun had ever seen.

Not to mention the ridiculous story that'd been spread throughout the survivors; some supernatural creatures that stalked them all night and tried to tear them apart. Yeah, right, like that was possible. The mountains were scary when during a winter storm where anything and everything could happen. Not to mention, there was the rumors that the Blackwood Pines Sanatorium was haunted by those that used to work there. And there were the others, miners and travelers that had gone missing under the same circumstances.

He couldn't fathom what the Washingtons were going through; first they lost both of their daughters, none of the money they funneled into search parties amounted to anything, even when the snow on the mountain had melted, their son, rightfully, became depressed, and the next thing they knew, their son was then considered missing as well. The entire family shattered in the course of two years.

Detective Calhoun, however, was lucky. He was lucky to be able to separate the case from his rea life. Every day he could go home, make a dark joke—that was gallows humor for you—and be able to spend time with his own family as if nothing outwardly different had happened during his day. But there were the nightmares, the times that he couldn't shake things off.

This was one of those times.

The case of the missing police officers. His missing men. Who'd gone in to investigate Blackwood Pines; the sanatorium, the mines, the house, all because of the frantic call they received from those teens—_young adults_—that were vacationing up there and never returned. It took weeks until their bodies were found, ripped apart. Destroyed by something, some animal, as they were all eventually told.

And that was that.

It was a year later, and Detective Calhoun hadn't forgotten. Couldn't forget as he was the lead on that case. He heard the frantic tones in the recorded distress message. The distress call.

_"Ranger service for Blackwood County. Over."_

_"Hello? Anyone there? Please, we need help! Over, over!"_

_"Hello?"_

_"Oh my god! Thank God! We need help, please!"_

_"Hello? Is someone trying to contact us? This is the Park Ranger service of Blackwood County. I'm not getting your signal very well. Please speak slowly and clearly, over."_

_"Please! Please, please, lease, help. Oh my god, we're stuck up on Blackwood Mountain and there's a maniac."_

_"If you can hear this please repeat your message as I am unable to understand your message. Over. Can you please identify yourself? Over."_

_"Help, oh my God, we're stuck in Blackwood Mountain at the ski lodge and there' s killer and he's killed one of our friends and oh God, please, come get us please."_

_"You're not coming in clearly, please repeat. Over."_

_"We're on Blackwood Mountain by the ski lodge, there's a killer and he's after us and he's already killed one of our friends. Oh god, please, you've gotta help us."_

_"I read you, ma'am. Please do not leave your position we will send our helicopters to get you as soon as the storm as subsided, over."_

_"What? When? How long?"_

_"Dawn at the earliest. Not until dawn, over."_

And by dawn the mansion was on fire, there was no sign of Josh Washington, and the other survivors lay among the snow bleeding and heavily bruised. When they were taken into interrogation rooms that night, waiting for their families to be brought in, came the stories. The stories of something on that mountain that stalked and attacked them. The stories of finding out what had truly happened to Beth and Hannah Washington, the stories of Josh disappearing.

The stories of the Wendigo.

But that's what they were, stories.

Stories that made no sense, stories made to cover up…well, he wasn't quite sure what it was they were trying to cover up. All he knew was that they were unreliable. There was nothing left in that house, there was nothing to prove the so-called wendigo, there was nothing to show for Josh's disappearance…only that girl's testimony.

What was her name again?

Detective Calhoun lowered his coffee from his mouth and went to his desk. He dropped heavily into his it and flipped through the manila folder on his desk. The thick manila folder filled with everything related to the Washington case over the past year. Everything before then was in a box permanently sitting by his desk. Tips and anonymous messages came in every day, there was no time to actively close the case. And it was a good thing, he brought up the girls' name quickly, her picture staring directly back at him, her name and information all on the other side.

None of the kids had been arrested, hell none of them ad a record, but they needed to keep track of whom they were speaking to and any background information that pertain to the case. It was interesting, to him, to note that the friends had all stayed friends after the so called prank that was played on Hannah before she and Beth raced out to the woods. That was the part of the story they all agreed on. It was what was chasing after them, what was targeting them they couldn't agree on.

Some saw it, others didn't…

But Sam, Sam…(Detective Calhoun looked t the notes once more) Sam Giddings said, no matter what, they had to check the mines.

_"You need to listen to me, I don't care if you believe me or not. Doesn't matter because you will. You need to go down to the mines."_

"What's in the mines, Sam?" Detective Calhoun had asked her then, just as he whispered the words to himself aloud in his office.

What was it that made Sam insist they go into the mines. What was it down there that made so man of those offices suffer a horrific death. An animal attack was what they were told, but how much of that did he know to be true? They had Park Rangers and other experts look over the wounds, he took their words for it.

But a girl like Sam Giddings wouldn't get so distraught over an animal that may have attacked, would she? She was an outdoorsy girl for sure; rock climbed, was a vegetarian, refreshingly didn't fall for PETAs tricks…had been picked up a few times for trespassing _because _of her climbing ventures, but deemed to be of no harm and consequently let go.

Sam's response whispered through Detective Calhoun's office, _"I've seen what's down there and I'd give anything to unsee it."_

Detective Calhoun set the folder aside, tapping his fingers atop the closed manila folder and took a deep breath, closing his eyes. The muscles in his back and shoulders were already starting to tense, hunching up towards his ears, shooting pain up and down his spine. All the hours of sleeping in his car was getting to him.

But he had to use every second of all his time to follow every lead, every tip, every little nuance of information he could get on Josh Washington.

Word on the street is that he'd been spotted for the first time in a year. And if Josh had been spotted, it mean he'd been alive for over a year. And if that were the case, and he were in the mines like Sam implied...how did he manage to survive for so long?


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

* * *

Matt knew what it was like to be strangled. To have the airway cut off around his neck while he struggled to get in that precious air. Knew what it was like to have that incredible strength continue to squeeze and choke the life out of him as everything went black and peace settled over him. Knew what it was like to continuously be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until he felt his bones creaking together.

One was due to a Wendigo who wanted to play with its prey before taking the final plunge in killing him. The other was his mother, who squeezed the life out of him every time he went home. Who was now squeezing him tighter than an octopus around their dinner because he finally brought someone home. And he wasn't quite sure if she would behave or latch onto Cleo and strangle her to death as well.

Matt finally reached up and taped his mother on the shoulder, voice muffled by her shoulder as he said, "Mom, could you release? Please? I can't breathe."

Mrs. Taylor finally let go of her son, cheeks reddened with pure delight of being reunited, and clasped her hands together in front of her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I'm just so glad to see my baby, again." She reached out and gently stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. Matt rolled his eyes, ducked his head away, feeling his cheeks redden with embarrassment—or was he still working to recover from the lack of air—and stepped aside, dropping his bag to the ground. There was more than enough that she could continue doing to keep embarrassing him, but that was good enough.

Especially when that was one of the things that he tried to avoid when it came to bringing Cleo home. His parents were always some of the more affectionate people in his life, probably why so many people accused him of being gay when he was growing up. Because she showed so much affection to his family and friends, and that sting in being in the drama club before finding football probably didn't help. But it was his mother's and father's love and affection for him and each other that made it easier for him to transition out of his hometown and finally go to college and live a normal life after the attacks.

He wasn't quite sure if his parents believed him or his story, of what happened to his friends, but they didn't treat him like he was crazy. He trusted them.

_Do you not trust Cleo?_

The thought rang in his head, knocking him off balance, off kilter, practically literally tried him over. So much so that he had to grab onto the table next to him to keep himself steady. Or…it was his mother pushing him out of the way so that she could reach Cleo and grab her in the biggest bear hug he'd ever seen. Cleo took it all in stride, taking the bone crushing hug with as much enthusiasm and giving it back, patting Matt's mother on the back.

And yet, over his mother's shoulder, Cleo looked to him with eyes wide. As nice as anyone could be, not everyone could take on his mother's enthusiasm. Matt chuckled to himself, watching. He could've helped her, probably should have, but seeing his girlfriend wonder whether she was going to effectively be suffocated by her boyfriend's mother was more than entertaining for Matt. She was confident in just about everything, and as enthusiastic as she was to meet his family—he wondered how long that would last—she never was a match for the Taylor brand of enthusiasm.

"And you're so much more gorgeous than your pictures!" Mrs. Taylor said, finally releasing Cleo. Long enough so that she could frame the young woman's face in her hands and pat them gently. "Matt, you should've said something before. Why'd you wait so long to bring her here?"

She knew exactly why, Matt reasoned. Said it quietly with the lift of an eyebrow. Not that I mattered too much, Mrs. Taylor didn't look at him, simply nodded as if the answer came to her, and dropped her hands from Cleo's face. She took a step back and clasped her hands together, missing the look Cleo gave Matt over her shoulder once more, and examined the young woman closely.

"You're special, I can tell," Mrs. Taylor said. "Not just because my son doesn't want to bring anyone home to meet me or my husband, but I can tell. There's something about you that's just glowing." A pregnant pause filled the air. She looked between the two, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "You didn't finally bring her home to tell me something, did you?"

"No!" Matt and Cleo cried in unison. With Matt going the extra mile to add an embarrassed, "Come on, mom," as an afterthought.

Mrs. Taylor merely grinned and cupped her son's cheek in her hand saying, "I'm just messing with you, baby. I know you'd never do something like that. It'd surely kill me. And I know your father wouldn't want to miss news like that." She waved her hands towards the kitchen. "Come, come! Sit down! Are you hungry? We've got plenty to eat! Now that Matt's gone, we've got more than enough food to share around and of course I made his favorites. I have to plump him up, have you seen how skinny he is?"

Cleo giggled, moving to sit on a nearby stool. "You wouldn't think he could be with how much eats."

"Can you imagine the food bill if he was still playing football?"

"If it's anything like it'd be when we inevitably move in together…" Cleo gave Matt a sly smile, while Matt stared at his mother and girlfriend incredulously. Things were going well, better than he thought they would. _Worringly _better than he thought. How much longer until the baby pictures started to get passed around. "You should see him after one of our dance practices."

"I'm still confused as to how you got him to dance." Mrs. Taylor went to the fridge and started to pull out what amounted to mountains of foil-wrapped and Tupperware lined pieces of food. "I've been trying to for years and other than little performances he'd do for his grandparents, I couldn't get it."

"Well, I can be very persuasive when I want to be." Cleo laced her fingers together and rested her elbows on the island she sat behind. She crossed her legs at the knee, tucking her ankles around each other, and flashed a smile toward Matt that he immediately recognized as her mischievous smile. Her face hadn't changed outwardly, but he truly saw the slightest twitch of the muscles in her eyebrows. She was going to have a lot of fun talking with his mom, he could tell.

"Trust me mom, she's not kidding." Matt sat on a stool next to her, stretching his arms above his head, releasing all the tension that settled into his shoulders and back from the long drive. From the stress that settled into him as he pulled closer to his hometown, practically begging a Wendigo to leap out in front of his car. Only for him to ram into it and continuously drive over it, hoping it would die, but knowing it wouldn't until either its head was ripped off or it found a new host. He pushed the thought aside. "She worked long and hard on me to join the club." He flashed her a smile, said sincerely, "Probably one of the best decisions I've ever made."

"I'll say," Mrs. Taylor agreed. "This girl here, she's special, I can tell." She wiggled a finger toward Matt and added, eyes still on Cleo. "He's a smart boy, but his taste in girls had never been the greatest. His last girlfriend, Emily, was a real terror."

"Mom," Matt warmed.

"No one liked her, honey." Mrs. Taylor shook her head. "She was a…angry little thing. I worried about her, really. There was something really troubling that had to have happened in her life and she struggled to get through it and…well…" she shot a look toward Matt. "I can understand why he wanted to be with her if that were the case."

"Oooh, secrets." Cleo wiggled in her seat. The same way she always did when she was excited, a movement that always made him love her. Probably had him fall in love with her in the first place. "I love secrets. Mattie's full of them."

"Please." Mrs. Taylor snorted, lovingly ruffling her son's hair as she passed. "He sings like a canary when you put enough pressure on him."

"I love you, too, mom," Matt replied. Worked to keep himself from panicking. Wondered what else she was going to reveal that he was carefully ensuring would be revealed when the time was right. Mrs. Taylor merely laughed a teasing laugh, reassured her son she would stop embarrassing him and wanted to know more about Cleo. "Tell me everything," She said eagerly arranging the food for the two to eat.

Hometown comfort.

It would've worked.

Had Matt not noticed that as attentive Cleo was to his mother, she still had half her eye on her phone. He watched as it sat on the counter, skipping across the granite countertop as it rang. How many times had it rang since they got closer and closer to the house? Well, that depended on whether or not she had the same tone for her text tone, which had gone off just as many times.

"What's wrong?" Matt asked.

Cleo's nose wrinkled. Her eyes shifted. Mrs. Taylor looked at the two over her shoulder but didn't say anything. Cleo then looked him in the eye, darkened with question, then lit up up with recognition. "Oh! You mean the phone calls." She waved her phone back and forth. "The perks of having family that worries about you when you travel clear across the country with a boyfriend they've never met."

"We've met," Matt defended himself. One or two times. "We've Skyped."

Cleo giggled, tucking her head beneath Matt's chin, her voluminous hair tickled his chin. "I don't think that counts. Or, at least, that's what my mom continuously reminds me. And it doesn't help that my grandma keeps sending me newspaper articles about not becoming so attached that I end up in an abusive relationship." She rolled her eyes.

"Ha!" Mrs. Taylor shook her head. "Matt wouldn't hurt a fly."

_Want to bet? _Matt still had nightmares about watching Emily cling onto the metal beam that was keeping her alive. How he demanded she tell him about her cheating on him. How he cared more about that then actually getting her to safety.

Nevertheless, Matt couldn't help but notice Cleo kept her phone facing down. And when she _did _answer it…she continued to keep it turned away from him. It wasn't like he could get upset though, right? She was keeping a secret from him that was, probably, harmless. But he was keeping a secret from her that could, maybe, end up killing her…

* * *

"So, it was crazy seeing Matt again, right?"

"Yeah. His girlfriend's hot."

Sam slowly rolled her head to look at Mike, who looked at her innocently. She sighed, shaking her head, then turned back to the mirror. Turned back to looking at his reflection. Watched as she ran a brush through her long hair, barely winced when the bristles got stuck in the wet tangles toward the ends of her hair and she yanked at them to get them out. No, her reflection stayed calm as she continued to yank, and yank, and yank and yank.

"Sammy, you're going to rip your hair out." Mike was suddenly behind her, gently easing the brush from her hand. "Believe it or not, it's one of the things I like about you." Sam sat calmly as she moved the brush through her hair, being careful not to pull at the strands, easing his way through the tangles and knots. Sam let him.

Had anyone told her that she would've ended up with the notorious Michael Munroe, she would've laughed in their faces. They were different. On so many levels. He loved eating meat, she was a staunch vegetarian, was probably going to go vegan soon. He loved to drink beer, she hated the taste of alcohol. He had a crude sense of humor, her sense of humor derived from watching videos of little kids falling over and pets being shamed for the things they may have done to their owners' houses. He could hardly string two sentences together without botching something up and she was well on becoming a scholar.

Until everything changed.

Until that night.

Those nights.

They worked well together when fending off the Wendigos. Communicated an entire plan without even saying a word to each other. Something they were still able to do. They were one of the couples who could stay in a room together without having to say a word. And unlike those other couples that pretended that it was okay but one of them really, truly wanted to say something, unlike those _other _other couples who may as well as been alone but were in the relationship out of convenience and didn't want to actually _be _alone.

And yet, it worked. It started out of emotional convenience, of course. There was no one else who would understand what they all went through. But Beth, Hannah, and Josh were dead. Emily, Chris, Ashley, and Matt moved as far away as they possibly could. And she and Mike…they couldn't leave. Maybe they felt a sense of camaraderie and needed someone and something to keep them sane. Emotionally sane.

The first time they slept together they'd been drunk. Every time after that had been a means to scratch an emotional itch they couldn't relieve themselves. Somewhere along the way, they fell in love, became domestic, relied on each other in ways they couldn't do with just anyone else. Love grew at some point. It had blindsided her. She looked to the side and found Mike simply reading the newspaper—something he didn't do before, he only liked to read magazines and whatever came up on his phone. (How he ended up being the class president, she wasn't sure). And something about the way he displayed his hand, sans fingers and all, that he didn't care so much to hide the brokenness of his nose, of the scars on his face…something made her love him and the other way around.

No matter how shrill and demanding she could be—his words, of course.

Still, Sam relaxed as Mike played with her hair. It was one of his favorite things to do when they spent the time in by themselves. They didn't really go out much other than to go to the gym, rock climb, do anything physical other than stay cooped up in their place. They had to stay 'normal' as it were. Show everyone that they were okay.

"I just meant…we haven't seen any of them in so long," Sam continued. "The longer we stayed here, the more it was like everyone wanted to forget us." She chuckled. "I'm surprised he recognized us."

"I don't think we have any ways to hide our faces in the crowd, lately," Mike said with a humorless laugh. He gestured toward his face. "How many men as good looking as me do you know with missing fingers." He sighed heavily. "I'm sure all the girls that I've dated before were devastated to hear what about to my magic fingers."

"I don't know about _that," _Sam teased. She rested her chin in her hands. Memories of good times with her friends flashing through her head. _Would we have even been friends? _She thought, frowning just so. Ever so lightly. Pursed her lips. _If things hadn't had happened the way they had…would we have still been together? _Her eyebrows furrowed together.

No.

That wasn't the case.

They were friends _before _that. Friends when it seemed like no one would have put that rag tag group together. It had to have been because of Josh, if she remembered correctly. Sam was friends with Hannah; probably Hannah's only friend. Josh was protective of his sisters, so he had to get to know her. So Sam became friends with Beth as well, who was friends with Emily and Jessica. Emily, who was dating Mike. Mike, who beat out Matt for being student body president, but who ran in the same partying circles—football players loved to party. Josh liked to party, so they always ended up in the same place. And Josh was best friends with Chris, who liked Ashley, who liked him back.

It was inevitable they'd all be together at some point. Create their own friend group.

The prank hadn't completely fractured them, Josh's prank had come close, the Wendigos literally and emotionally tore them apart. If she knew what was true about the Wendigo…about that tattoo…then they all deserved it.

Mike continued speaking, not noticing the faraway look that'd come to his girlfriend's eyes. "You're the one who falls asleep every time I play with your hair. See?" He gently nudged her when she closed her eyes, focusing on the light, very light, ticklish pulls at her wet strands of hair. "You're falling asleep already."

"I'm not sleeping," Sam replied. "I'm remembering."

Mike's hands stilled in her hair. He took a deep breath, leaned over her, and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "You really miss them, don't you? All of them." Sam nodded. "I do, too. I always think…if it weren't for the prank—"

"—That wasn't your fault," Sam said. Automatically. Her mouth moved before the words came.

"Yes it is, we know it." Mike knelt down next to her, made her turn to face him. Same pressed her lips together, studying her boyfriend. "I knew she had a thing for me, even though I was dating Emily. I made fun of her. I didn't try to let her down. I liked the attention. Watching Em get jealous was always fun for me. I took it too far. If she didn't run out that night…" he took in a deep breath. "She wouldn't have turned into…"

"No." Sam shook her head. Put a smile—_that _smile—back on her face. "We don't know…for sure, what we saw." She shook her head. "That's not true, we know what we saw." She nodded. "We know the Wendigos are real, no matter what other people say. But they're up on that mountain. And we're here. And there's nothing we can do to change that. We can't change the past. We have to keep moving forward." She reached up and ran a hand through Mike's hair, cradled his face.

Mike nodded, looked away for a moment. Then he looked back at her and said, "Okay, but you can't change the subject. Matt's girlfriend is pretty hot. I didn't know he could pull something like that." Sam laughed, grasped Mike's face, and kissed him. "Good, I made you laugh."

"Only because I know you meant it," Sam replied with a light roll of her eyes. "I can count on you for that. And for a lot of other things." She looked over as her phone hop, skipped, and jumped over the bathroom counter. Mike grabbed it and handed it to her. She turned it over in her hand, eyebrows coming together when she read the caller ID. "Huh," Sam murmured. "Detective Calhoun is calling me." She sighed quietly. "I wonder what he wants."

* * *

**A/N: **So close to some really good (and dark) action parts, guys. Thank for sticking around.

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

* * *

Emily Davis sighed heavily as she pushed open the door to her apartment. She expected to be hit with the smell of something cooking on the stove. Expected to be hit with a babbling story of what she missed while she was out. Expected to see a bright, shining face in front of her.

Instead, she found Jessica Riley sitting on the floor of their living room, starring at nothing. A wine bottle sat at her side, already half drunk. Emily didn't need to see the bottle to know that, the smell of alcohol was in the air. Plus, she could see Jess's hand shaking when she grabbed the bottle and tried to bring it to her mouth. She pressed her lips against it, her lips in a firm pucker, and took another swig.

Jess barely reacted when Emily closed the door behind her and said a quiet, "Oh, Jess," walking toward her. Instead, Jess simply finished her swing, lowered the bottle back to her side, and turned her red, glassy eyes toward Emily. She didn't look like she recognized Emily, her blue eyes were hardly focusing on anything. And yet, she didn't move away when Emily lowered herself to the ground next to her. "What happened?" She gently nudged Jess on the shoulder. "Did your gig fall through?"

Unbeknownst to everyone else, somehow, Jessica Riley did what she wanted to do and became a model. Her biggest dream had become a reality. But there were more hardships for her than anyone else would have ever had to go through. The wounds from the wendigo had left her disfigured, crippled. She even had a permanent limp, stemming from her bad fall in the mines. Jessica worked hard with her physical therapy to get where she was, worked hard to for every door that slammed in her face to hold onto that glimmer of hope that kept her from breaking down completely.

Her first job was for a company that had a cream that reduced scarring. Jess didn't think the cream worked, but it wouldn't stop her from having her photos taken. The more exposure she had, the better. And since then, Jessica continued to do job after job, the best makeup artists in the world covering all her wounds and scars. But it didn't stop the winces and the worried looks when her face was bear, just before makeup went on.

There was a reason all the mirrors in their apartment were covered. Emily, when she was sure Jess wasn't around, would take down the covers on the mirror so she could look at herself. She, in comparison to Jess, was blessed to not have had any of he wounds reach her face. She was the one who'd gotten off the lightest; no physical wounds but had mental ones that would never go away.

She worked on a few hours of sleep a night, would get up early and force herself to go out and do as much as she could to keep herself from getting too into her mind. Of reliving that night over and over. Of seeing the gun point to her face, of seeing the mass hysteria in Mike's eyes when he leveled the gun at her, of hearing Ashley frantically shriek at Sam that she was going to turn into a Wendigo because of a bite.

Emily winced, feeling a sharp pain in her shoulder as if she'd been bitten again. Right, she _did _have a scar. She _was _wounded. But it was easy to forget, it was behind her, she didn't see it every day.

Jess shook her head, bobbed it back and forth. Her head rolled around her shoulders, as if it was taking the weight of the world to keep it up. Finally, she focused on Emily and said quietly, "Detective Calhoun called."

Emily's heart dropped almost instantly. She sucked in a sharp breath, then waved her hand in the air. "So what? Detective call about anything." She jostled Jess, gently pushing her with her shoulder. "Maybe he's going to ask you out."

Jess snorted. "He doesn't want to ask me out."

"I don't know, I saw the way he was looking at you during our last interviews."

"Shut up, Em," Jessica immediately replied. She shook her head, nearly knocking herself over in the process. "Isn't he married?"

"I'm just looking out for my girl," Emily replied. Then froze. Underneath her shoulder, Emily felt Jessica freeze at the same time.

It was funny how no matter how much things changed; they still stayed the same. Those same words had been said ages ago that kickstarted everything. Maybe, if they hadn't had done anything at all, they would've been happier. Things would've been different. If they weren't so stuck up with what they thought was so important…if they didn't think they needed to be such mean girls about a _guy_…a guy they were no longer in contact with…

_"Oh my God, I can't you actually did this."_

_"Don't you guys think this is a little but cruel?"_

_"Come on, she deserves it."_

_"It is not her fault that she ahs a huge crush on mike."_

_"Hannah's been making the moves on him. I'm just looking out for my girl, Em."_

_"Just because he's class prez doesn't mean he belongs to everyone; Mike is my man."_

And then he was Jess's man, and then he was…nothing. Well, last she heard through the gossip grapevine was that he was with Sam now. She hadn't expected that, but then again, she hadn't expected anything about the night they spent on Blackwood Mountain.

"What did he say on the phone?" Emily asked instead, dropping her arm from around Jess's shoulders.

Jess shrugged. "I didn't answer."

"Jess…"

Jess's face turned ugly then. She scowled toward Emily. "Don't…don't act like you wouldn't have done the same thing. I don't…I…" she shook her head, her pigtails hitting her in the face. "I don't want to go there again."

"No one's going anywhere."

But Jess wasn't finished. She continued her drunken tirade, swinging the wine bottle back and forth as she slurred her words, continued to deny that she wanted anything to do with it. Emily could see her getting emotional, could see the pain come flooding back to her. Everything that she worked so hard to get through within the past year.

Finally, Jess stood up and stumbled, throwing her hand out to keep herself from falling straight onto the couch. Emily got up and grasped Jess's arm. She slung it over her shoulder then used her other hand to bring the now empty wine bottle out of Jess's hand. Jess gave it up without a fight, she rested her head on Emily's shoulder—though it was more like she collapsed against Emily's side.

"Come on." Emily walked Jess to her room and gently laid her onto her bed, tucking her in. She turned off the light while Jess brought her hand up to her face and moaned quietly. "I'll check on you later." She closed the door behind her, then went to the living room and collapsed on the couch.

If only people could see her then. Big Bad Emily Davis, who was the resident bitch. She had a quick tongue, sharp wit, and could put down even the most confident person. She wanted to be a magazine style editor, had a 4.0 GPA and had everything ready for her. And then that night, that one night two years ago, set everything in motion that would be the downfall for the rest of her life.

But then the last year…things had been fine, she moved far, _far _away from where everything had happened. Winded up in New York, worked an internship with a fashion magazine, ran into Jessica. They put their past feelings with Mike aside, almost ignored that it ever happened. Made sure _not _to talk about that night as they caught up over coffee, agreed to hang out the next day, and slowly but surely became best friends again. Moving in was the obvious thing to do, it was like nothing had happened and they were themselves again.

But they weren't themselves. They weren't nearly as bitchy as they used to be, didn't wonder if they needed to backstab each other for their own personal gain. Didn't wonder what it was that was going to eventually tear them apart. They were the versions of themselves they had to put forward so people around them would stop worrying, stop wondering, stop caring if there was an actual change in them because they'd been to therapy. Because they were working to put everything behind them.

Emily had just locked it away. It came out at the worst of times. When she was by herself and allowed herself to think about it…it all came flooding back and played in her head on a projection screen. The terror of the wendigo bite, the terror of being on the mountain with nothing to save them, the uncertainty of when they'd be saved, the horror of knowing she was second away from death.

Everything was fine.

And now it was shattered with one phone call.

Sometimes, we wished she had been killed during that night. It would've made the horrors of living pale in comparison.

* * *

**A/N: **So everyone's interpretation of what would happen with Emily and Jess after the game is different, but I think the shared trauma could've gotten them back together again as friends. Obviously Mike was the big thing that drove a wedge between them, but you can't go through something like that and not come out the other side with at least some sort of respect for the other person.

Anyway, there's more coming! And we'll have something big happen in the next chapter as well. I'm so excited for you all to see!

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

Josh tilted his head to the side as he gazed through the bar window. As far as anyone knew, bars weren't supposed to open so early and this one was no exception. But it was the only bar he knew that had people who worked all day just to make sure the workload at night wasn't so bad.

That's what made it so easy for him to watch Chris and Ashley throughout the day. _Chris and Ash. Chris is an ass. _Josh smiled to himself, as much as he could with the side of his mouth that only managed to make his largest, sharpest teeth protrude. It was grotesque, but there were simply responses to the looks and questions he got.

It was none of their damn business.

So what if he was nearly blind out of one day during the day, his night vision had always been better. And so what if his teeth were jacked up, compared to the usual 'pearly whites' that the celebrities and

And, as it was, it wasn't like it was _hard _to watch people walk around him and not reach out his hand, strangle them, and rip their heads off so he could get a decent meal. The random dogs and cats that walked along the streets were enough for him. At first. And it wasn't even the food that helped keep him moving, human food worked as well, but it was the chase that he enjoyed.

The thrill of chasing those so desperate to get away that their pissed themselves in fear and scrambled, trying to find their footing. The basic instinct of getting away as fast as possible being the only thing moving them forward.

That, and the fact that it made the voice inside his head shut up for once. The voice that always managed to come back at the worst amount of times. Thankfully, since coming down off the mountain, Josh hadn't heard the voice nearly as much. He'd thought of Hannah and Beth in the time that the voice wasn't there. And there were the tiniest amount of times where he had his own thoughts. Which were finally, startingly, clear.

And, truth be told, he missed his friends. What else would have had him going to the bar that Chris and Ashley owned and were obviously prospering well off of, and watch them? What else would make him watch to see what they were doing? How well they were getting along? He'd watched Emily and Jess and Sam and Mike long enough to know what they were doing at any given moment.

Chris and Ashley were a little bit harder to determine. They only came out during the day, kept to themselves at night. And Josh hated going out in the day unless he absolutely had to. It was like 'they' said, the freaks sure do come out at night. And he may as well have become invisible when he was able to walk around under the cover of darkness.

But Chris and Ash, man, if there were people, they'd consider creatures of habit, they were it. Even as Josh watched them through the window, he knew what they would do next. Chris was going to take the bucket of dishes he'd just cleaned to the back room where the dish washer was—a precaution. Then he'd come back out to the front, give Ashley a kiss on the cheek, then duck outside to take his daily smoke break. Ashley would shake her head, warn him that smoking wasn't good for him—like anything about owning a bar was—and she'd go back to preparing the menu for that day, pursing her lips as she read over what was already perfect.

So, Josh waited until Chris walked out the back door of the bar, lowering his head over a lighter and the caner stick that bobbed out from between his lips. Then he lifted his scarf over his face and walked to the alleyway that was perpendicular to the one Chris had just gone through.

No need to prove that he was watching him.

It was best to make him think everything was normal for a while longer.

Josh waited around the side of the bar, listening as Chris took in a drag and let it out. He could smell the smoke in the air. Twisting his mouth to the side, Josh wondered when the best time was to announce his presence. When he was taking in another drag—actually, yeah, that'd be pretty funny.

So Josh waited, peered around the corner until he could see Chris bring the cigarette up to his mouth once more. Then Josh walked pushed himself off the wall and rounded the corner. He started whistling to himself as he practically skipped down the alleyway until Chris lifted his head and glanced at him. His eyes widened behind his glasses when he took in a deep, sudden breath, and started to choke.

Smoke filled the air, spewing from Chris's mouth in gasps while Josh watched him with nothing short of glee. "Hey, Cochise," he greeted in a slow drawl, words forming slower now that the side of his face was disfigured. "Long time, no see."

* * *

Cleo woke to Matt moving from beneath her. She squinted an eye open, seeing him slowly yet carefully dragging himself out from beneath her head, dropping her hand to the couch. He rolled over and landed on all fours on the floor and stood up, brushing down the front of his t-shirt. He started to take a step, only pausing when Cleo spoke.

"You know you're not as quiet as you think you are," she teased, opening her eyes fully. Matt jumped and turned to look at her. "Why're you so jumpy? You'd think you would've gotten used to that by now."

"Waking up next to you? I'm always used to that." Matt grinned and leaned into her, pressing a kiss to her lips. Then he leaned back, brushing her curls from her face. "But not in my mom's house."

"It's your dad's house, too, silly," Cleo reminded him. She rolled onto her back, resetting the pillow behind her head. It was much fluffier than Matt's stomach, that was for sure. But not nearly as inviting. "Is that why you're whispering?"

Matt blinked in surprise. "I didn't know I was," he said. Then laughed to himself, standing once more. "Yeah…I guess I don't know how my parents were going to react to this whole thing." Cleo didn't have to ask to know 'this whole thing' meant her. How his parents would react to her. "I could only hope that you guys would get along."

"Get along?" Laughing, Cleo sat up, rubbing at the pain that suddenly erupted in her neck. "Matt, your mom practically stared making up a list of things to have at our wedding." His eyes widened, almost in fear. "I'm kidding, she hasn't crossed that line yet. But she's a lot more inviting than some of the other parents I've been around. Believe me." When Matt raised his eyebrow, Cleo giggled quietly. "Oh yeah, I forgot that you haven't had your run in with the stage moms yet."

"Are they anything like the moms from _Dance Moms?" _Matt asked.

"Much worse," Cleo replied. She yawned once more, rubbing at her eyes. "I didn't realize I was so tired from the drive."

"Well, you _did_ talk the whole way," Matt reminded her. He turned on his heel disappearing into the kitchen. He raised his voice to continue speaking to her as he went. "And sang to every song. Sometimes at the same time, I was impressed and creeped out at the same time."

"I hope your mom doesn't think I'm a ditz or something," Cleo replied. As Matt answered, she reached for her phone that she tucked in-between the couch cushions when they snuggled on the couch to watch the movie. If they were going to do some of the homecoming festivities as the days progressed, Matt insisted on having some downtime before being swept up in it all.

And that was alright with her, Cleo wanted to hang out around the house. Get some time to see how her boyfriend worked around his family. See if she was accepted to know if he was the right one to bring home to _her _family. And into _her _life.

_And tell him the truth, _Cleo thought, sighing down at her phone. She waved her hand over the screen, allowing it to illuminate itself. To give her enough time to see the messages she may have gotten before deciding which ones to reply to. A lot of them were from her mother.

_Do you have the results yet?_

_Well?_

_What aren't you telling me?_

_Call me back, please!_

_Sweetie, where are you?_

_Cleo, is everything okay?_

And then a few from her father, which were much more lighthearted. _Ignore your mother, you know how she worries over nothing. I told her you were going to be traveling to your boyfriend's place and she freaked out and wanted to try and track your iPhone. I should've taken that feature off when you told me to._

Cleo smiled to herself, scrolling through the messages. She 'awwed' quietly, seeing the picture of her dog, Luka, that her father had attached as well. The first time in forever she wasn't going to be greeted by her boy when she went home. But it was worth it.

She hoped.

_No results yet, _she typed back. _Mom, stop freaking out. _But she continued to rub the side of her neck, trying to rub away the pain that seemed to radiate from there. She lowered her hand to her lap and shook out her shoulders, rolling them when Matt came back into the room, carrying the newspaper.

He frowned at it, turning it this way and that in his hands, as if trying to understand something about it. Cleo gave him a funny look, working to keep from laughing. "Babe, it's a newspaper. I know it's not a cellphone, but it's not that hard to read."

"I know, I was looking for mom," Matt replied with a roll of his eyes. "She must've gone to the store. She doesn't really read the newspaper but…" he trailed off, looking over it once more. "She's usually very clean about things, keeps everything in order. And there's a page missing."

Cleo waved her hand.

"So…?"

Matt gave her a 'duh' look. "The sports section? Really? She knows that's my favorite."

"Oh my _God_, Matt, you're so basic!" Cleo shoved her phone into her pocket and stood, planting her hands on her hips. "There's more to life than football and baseball and sweaty guys beating each other up." She shrugged. "Not _much _more, but more." Matt started to protest but stopped when Cleo threw her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss. "So, where are you taking me first?"

"Umm." Matt looped his arms around her waist as he thought. "Game's not going to start for a little while. But we can find something to do first."

"Liiike, that drink with your friends?" Cleo asked. She bounced on her toes. "I've already gotten to know your mom, but I don't know much about your friends." Matt looked like he was going to protest but Cleo stuck out her lower lip. "You're going to see them at the game anyway, right? Please?"

"That doesn't work, Reed, you know that."

"Okay." She sucked her lip back into position and folded her arms. "But when was the last time you said 'no' to a beer?" Matt thought for a second. Cleo grinned, seeing the resolution move through his eyes, quickly pushing away the trepidation. "Okay, okay. Just one and then we're going straight to the game then back!"

"Yay!" Cleo clasped her hands together.

"Let me just tell mom where we're going." Matt turned on his heel and went to his room. Cleo dropped back onto the couch and quickly texted her parents a few more times, then let her roommate know that they'd arrived safely, and bounced back to her feet when Matt came back down, now wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead.

With a wave of his keys, he motioned for her to follow him and they got back into his car and drove into town. He found a place to park and the two got out, strolling toward the bar that Matt was suddenly eager to get to. He clasped her hand, holding it tightly in his, swinging their hands between them as they went. "I'm telling you, this place has the best stuff you can get on tap."

"How'd you know?" Cleo asked with a raised eyebrow. "You weren't only enough to drink until recently." Matt grinned. Cleo reached out, pressing her finger into his cheek, turning it this way and that. "Have you been a bad boy?"

"Not in the way that you'd like." Matt looped his arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "But, let's just say, a lot of people looked the other way when you were winning games almost every time you played." He tightened his grasp around Cleo's shoulders when a homeless man moved closer to them, holding out his hand. "Don't look at him, just keep moving."

"But he just wants some money."

"Yeah, they all want money," Matt agreed. "But then you'll be giving money to everyone out here. Trust me, it's better to just ignore him." The homeless man dropped his hand then started rambling as he turned to the shopping cart filled to the brim with random items.

"Yeah, you better get out here while you can," The homeless man continued as the couple headed away from him. "It's starting to get dark. It's not safe out here."

Cleo shot a worried look to Matt, who shook his head. "It's never that safe anywhere after dark," he reminded her. "That's when the freaks come out." He bumped her hip with his, making her giggle and shove him back in response.

"Beware of the Wendigo!"

All at once, Matt came to a stop, almost freezing. Cleo stumbled, working hard to keep herself from falling over, quickly adjusting her step from a rhythmic pattern to a side-step and stood up straight. She turned to face the homeless man who watched them like a hawk. Cleo looked at him, then at Matt, then back to the homeless man once more.

Seeing he had her attention, the homeless man inched closer to her.

"The Wendigo?" Cleo repeated. She glanced at Matt, who simply continued to look at the man in front of him, watching him closely. Detached. Almost as if he were looking through the man. "What's a Wendigo?"

Her question seemed to bring Matt back to life, for he grabbed Cleo's arm and started to tug. "Cleo, Come on. We're going to be late."

"Miss, I can tell you want to hear this," the man continued. "The Wendigo are said to be rueful creatures. That they are faster than the wind, can take down even the strongest of men with one swipe of their claws, and…" he leaned toward her. "That anyone can become a wendigo. If they come into a time of temptation and eat human flesh they can become one."

"We're done here!" Matt tightened his grasp on Cleo's arm and pulled her away from the man and down the sidewalk, toward the bar.

"But most importantly!" The man shouted after him. "They're coming off the mountain!"

At that, Matt whipped back around toward the man. He looked at the man through narrowed eyes before asking, "What'd you say?"

The man slowly nodded. Grinned, showing off his yellowed, gnarled teeth that poked through the unruly beard covering his face. "Got your attention there, huh? I said, they're coming down off the mountain!" He turned to the side and pulled out a folded sheet of newspaper. "They said it was just a wolf or a coyote that got to the dog. But…what got to the family that owned the dog?"

Matt snatched the sheet of newspaper from the man's hand and flipped it open. Cleo stood behind him, reading the page herself. The paper shook as the two stood around it. Cleo's eyes shifted over the page, taking in everything at breakneck speed. The barking and howling that'd started a little after ten pm, that had abruptly stopped. It was the sudden changing of the barking that had alerted the family that something was going on. So the family left the house to see what'd caused the commotion.

And, next thing the neighbors knew, they heard frantic and scared screaming that was abruptly cut off as well. When the police were called, they'd arrived to find all the residents of the house, the dog included, missing their heads. As if whomever or whatever had killed them had taken the heads as a sort of trophy. But the strangest part, had been when the police had left the crime scene to, understandably, react to the discovery of the bodies—re: to get sick on the front lawn, they came back to the bodies gone and divots driven into the ground as if they'd been dragged away.

But what sort of animal could have taken them as quickly as the wind.

Matt abruptly crumpled the sheet once more and tossed it aside. He then grabbed Cleo's hand once more and dragged her toward the bar once more. It wasn't until then that Cleo realized that it wasn't the wind that was making the newspaper shake, there wasn't a breeze blowing that night, but the strength and speed of how much Matt's hands were shaking.

As if he knew something she didn't.

* * *

**A/N: **I bet you didn't expect that to happen as soon as the chapter opened, did you? Lol. I had actually planned on having Josh reveal himself later, but then I remembered some of the more...I guess you'd say supernatural, stuff that I have planned that's coming up and it made more sense, story wise, for it to show up here.

Anyway, I hope you liked it. Thanks to _bob the kraken _for your review. I had already planned on updating, but your review pushed me to work on it quicker. :)

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

"Matt, are you going to tell me what's wrong or am I just going to lose the feeling in my hand for the rest of my life?" Cleo worked hard to keep up with Matt's long stride. She stopped, feeling her heel slide out of her shoes. "Ow! Matt, will you hold on?"

She sighed a scoffing sigh when Matt turned back toward her and dropped her hand. He placed his hands on his hips, then folded his arms, waited while Cleo gingerly balanced on her shoe covered foot and tried to pull the other one back on. Cleo looked up at him with a curious expression. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Matt replied.

"Isn't that the biggest lie ever told in history," Cleo shot back. She pressed her foot back in and folded her arms, mimicking his stance. She looked him in the eye. "What's really going on? You can't tell me that that poor man actually scared you."

Matt rolled his eyes. "He didn't scare me." He shook his head. "He just…"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Matt."

"Never mind, it's nothing. Can we go please?" Matt reached out his hand toward Cleo once more. She looked back at him. Matt raised his eyebrows, continuing to wait. Cleo folded her arms and looked back at him. Matt dropped his hand and slapped it to his side. "Cleo…"

"Are we just going to be saying each other's names now?" Cleo watched as Matt rolled his eyes once more, despite the sides of his mouth turning up. "I know you're starting to smile, but you've been acting weird since we got here."

"I'm just…" Matt turned on his heel and started walking down the sidewalk once more. Cleo fell in step along with him. She angled herself to the side, watching his face as they walked. "I'm tired from the drive down here. Maybe this wasn't a good idea, going to the bar."

"Matt, we're just going to see your friends. No one said anything about staying here all night—"

"I don't think—"

"—And I don't want to have to argue about this again. You said we could go out, let's go out. We have tomorrow to spend more time with your family. We're going to watch the homecoming game and all that. But I want to get to know you. The real you. And the best ones to do that are your friends from school. So…"

"Matt."

Cleo and Matt turned forward to see Sam and Mike standing in front of them. Mike removed his arm from Sam's shoulder as Sam stepped forward, that peculiar smile still she had at the gas station still on her face. Sam reached out and gave Matt a quick hug before greeting Cleo the same. Surprised, Cleo's eyes widened but she wrapped her arms around Sam and gave her a hug back.

"We're glad you guys came," Sam continued, taking a step back. "It'll be nice to see everyone again." She looked to Mike, who shrugged noncommittingly. "I heard that Jessica and Emily are going to be coming, too."

Matt's eyebrows rose. He looked to Mike, who looked back at him, seeming to be as surprised as Matt did. Cleo watched their expressions then turned to face Sam once more. She thought for a moment then tilted her head to the side, watching her boyfriend closely. "So, which of Jessica or Emily is your ex-girlfriend."

"Which one do you think is bitchier?" Mike commented. He laughed while Sam elbowed him hard in the side. "I mean, isn't that what homecomings are for? To meet up with your old friends, and to run into your exes in some of the worst ways possible?"

"How many of them have you run into, Mike?" Matt asked with a smirk. "Didn't you go through, I don't know, half the school?"

"Nah, it was more like a third." Mike waved his hand. "I think you're forgetting about freshmen year. When I didn't grow into my looks yet."

"Oh yeah, your nose was too big."

"That wasn't the only thing that was big," Sam murmured with a light roll of her eyes.

_The first crack in her armor_, Cleo thought, watching Sam closely. It was the first time that stepford smile seemed to drop from her face. Cleo had a lot of experience with that smile, it was similar to the ones they wore when they were performing. You had to put on a smile, an air of confidence, anything that would mask what may be going on in their personal life.

There were more than enough times Cleo was breaking down inside from the course load, from the pressure of her friends, from the pressure of her parents, from everything bad going on in her life and she went out on stage and pasted on the biggest and brightest smile she could while she performed. Then when she was offstage, she would go into her corner and cry hysterically. Letting out all the pain deep inside her. Then, once the pain was gone, she was back on her feet and smiling warmly, that time for real.

She could always see it in other people. Could see when they were trying to hide things. It's what made her and Matt so close when they first started to hang out. There was a sadness, a darkness about him she could see that other people didn't seem to notice. A dark cloud that followed him around. Not to toot her own horn, but the dark cloud didn't start to go away until she started to talk to him. To bring him out of his shell.

It's what worked for her when she was in her hospital stays for chemotherapy. Sometimes she would spend full days in an arm chair with a book, a drip in her arm, and wrapped up in a blanket, talking to the others in the ward who were waiting for their bags to empty before going home. Sometimes she would stay to herself, having some of her more off days as she worked through her own darkness that continued to envelop her when she didn't have that bright shiny, conversationalist around to keep her up.

She worked hard to keep herself in as good as mood as she possible could. But it was hard. Cancer was hard. Cancer ruined her life, ruined her prospects of looking forward to anything. How "lucky" was it to have been caught "early"? When "early" meant she was a child, wondering why she was bruising easily, why she was so tired, why she had to change her diet, why she had to go to the doctor so much. Why her hair started to fall out?

Catching it early meant she was supposed to be able to get the medicine to stop it and it'd leave her alone. Not continuously come back, making her fight harder and harder as they days went on. As the years went on. Not having to worry each year when she went in for a screening, for a physical to see what was going on. Having to worry about the anxiety and fear that plagued her as the days went on, wondering when she'd finally get the results.

Fielding messages from her parents as _they _wondered when they'd finally get the results.

Cleo shook her head, brushing her hair behind her ears as she tried to keep the comparison from her head. It was jarring, who quickly she flashed back to some of the worst times in her life. The times she wasn't sure was going to become bad again, all because she found a, what, kindred spirit in someone she didn't know. Didn't know how or why she was as broken as she was.

She focused when noticing the looks Matt and Mike were giving her; Matt, incredulous, and Mike, smarmy. "I meant his ego, gosh."

"I _knew _you looked!" Mike declared. He clapped his hands together gleefully. He looked to Cleo. "I went streaking before the big homecoming game senior year and little miss Sam here claimed she missed the whole thing. But I _knew _she saw and liked it! Liked the appearance of Mike Jr. Mr. Man Meat."

"Liked it?" Sam snorted. "I'm a vegetarian."

"So when did you break that? When you were choking down-"

Sam elbowed Mike hard in the stomach while Mike continued to laugh at his own joke. Matt and Cleo smiled politely. All laughter ceased when two girls walking by came to a stop and turned toward them. Cleo watched Mike recognize the two, look at Sam, then stepped back. The blonde girl gave a ghost of a smile, folding her arms, while the dark-haired girl looked at the group. "Well, if this isn't a family reunion," she cooed. "Didn't think I'd see you guys again."

"Hi" the blonde added waving her hand quietly. She nodded to the two. "It's good to see you."

"Hey Jess," Matt said. He smiled warmly to her, reached out and gave her a hug. Cleo watched as "Jess" wrapped her arms around Matt and hugged him tightly, resting her chin on his shoulder, then lowered it so that her forehead rested against him.

Cleo was never a jealous person, never had been. Life was too short for that. Literally. But she was starting to feel there were a lot of things he hadn't told her. He never mentioned a Mike, Sam, "Jess", or Emily. And Yet, everyone suddenly seemed to be showing up.

_That's okay, _Cleo thought. _There's a part of you that you haven't told him. That you haven't _wanted_ to tell him. Maybe he didn't want to tell you this. _Nevertheless, she reached out and gently rubbed Matt's back, grabbing his attention while he released from his hug.

"How's everything going, Jess?" Matt asked, as if Cleo wasn't there.

Cleo's eyebrows furrowed.

"Good. Good." Jess tucked her blonde hair behind her ears and folded her arms once more. However, there was a light to her eyes that added to the small smile that came to her face. A face filled with scars, Cleo noticed. Otherwise, Jess was very pretty. Sort of sad, but pretty. "I've been busy. I've had a lot of jobs I've been working on lately. They still want me as a model even though…" she gestured toward her face.

"So, is no one going to ask about me?" The other girl asked. "I know I can be a bitch sometimes, but that doesn't mean you have to ignore me like I'm not here."

"Hey Em," Matt replied. He smiled what looked to be a smarmy smile toward her. "How're you?"

"Good thanks," Emily replied in the same smarmy tone. "Now that everyone's decided I exist again." She then turned to Mike and Sam. "Oh and if it isn't the perfect couple."

"Hi Emily, Hi Jess," Sam greeted them pleasantly. "It's good to see you guys again." Then her smile faded, just slightly. "I didn't know you were still in the area."

"Anyone would if they picked up the phone," Emily pointed out. She looked around the group. "Unless we're all avoiding phones right now." Then her eyes landed on Cleo and she looked her up and down before looking toward Matt. "I see you've finally decided to try out the other side." Then her eyebrows rose. "Wow, she's really pretty. You always did go after the pretty ones." Then she thrust her hand out toward Cleo with gusto. "I'm Emily, the ex-girlfriend that he's probably never mentioned."

Cleo took her hand and shook it firmly. "Cleo. Matt's mentioned you before."

"Really?" Emily asked, eyes widening in surprise.

"Really?" Mike repeated. He motioned with his thumb toward Emily. "Because I don't mention her at all. Ow!" Sam smacked him one more.

"Hey, we're all here for the same thing, apparently," Sam said, jumping into the conversation. "To have some drinks…and to see old friends." She looked around the group. "So…let's go." She shot Mike a warning look before making her way down the sidewalk and toward the bar. The rest of the group fell in with her, moving in silence.

Cleo pressed her lips together, watching the friends as they went. Or, former friends, if her assumptions were correct. Something had happened with them, tore them apart. The history was there but…something had ruined the friendship from moving forward. Distance wasn't it, you had to work to keep a friendship with distance as much as you had to work to _lose _a friendship due to distance. It didn't seem like they tried to do anything with it either way.

The tension continued to mount with each step until they made it to the bar where they suddenly came to a halt, seeing the 'CLOSED' sign that sat on the door. Cleo let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Relief. Maybe the night wasn't a good idea after all.

"Well, if this isn't the best turn of events," Emily declared. She clapped her hands together. "So we'll see each other again in another year?" She looped her arm through Jess's and started to turn her away. "See you freaks later."

Suddenly, the door to the bar flew open and a blonde bespectacled man poked his head out. He looked at the group and motioned them inside. "Chris!" Sam said, her smile brighter for him than for the girls that arrived. "It's so good to—"

"—Yeah, yeah," Chris interrupted. "We can talk when you get inside."

"What's with the closed sign man?" Mike asked, bustling toward the door. "It doesn't really look like a party in there." But Mike followed Chris's lead and stepped into the bar, bringing his arm back to leave around Sam as she moved into the bar as well.

The rest of the group piled in. Cleo looked around the bar, noticing how creepy it was when there was no music and no patrons. And even creepier from the way that everyone turned to look at each other. Sizing each other up.

"So, Chris, where's Ash?" Sam asked brightly.

Chris waved her off, pacing the floor. He ran his hand over his chin, then up his face, rubbing at his eyes. He took off his glasses and set it onto the bar top. He let out a short breath. Mike's eyes widened as the seconds passed.

"She didn't _die _did she?" Mike asked. Matt cringed. Sam rolled her eyes. Emily snorted. Jess seemed not to notice. "What? It's just a question!"

Chris folded his arms and gave him a look. Then he let out a long sigh and said so quietly Cleo almost didn't hear. "I saw Josh."

Sam was the first one to speak. "Josh is dead." She said it so matter-of-factly that it made the Stepford smile look ghastly. "We know that."

"No, he's not, Sam." Chris shook his head, along with the trembling in his voice. "He's alive. I saw him. He came down from the mountain…" he sucked in a deep breath. "Just like the rest of them have."

"The rest of what?" Cleo asked.

Matt made a move to stop Chris, but he continued as if Matt weren't there. "The wendigo."


End file.
